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Turns out people don’t need the Bolsavik after all. While the Bolsavik was at orchestra practice, polls closed in San Jose and Councilwoman Madison Nguyen handily won 55-45, according to numbers with all precincts reported here. This blog’s readers were already leaving comments here about the election result, even before the Bolsavik ever made it past his front door.

In another sign that the traditional polling booth may be becoming obsolete day by day, this special election was decided most by mail ballots, with 9,502 people voting by mail and only 2,247 showing up at the precincts.

That’s more than 4-to-1 voting by mail.

The petition for a special election to recall San Jose City Council member Madison Nguyen (pictured left, from the 2008 Tet Festival) has been approved, and the special election will be held March 3 next year, reports the San Jose Mercury News here.

According to the paper, the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters found that at least 4,775 of the 5,180 signatures submitted (read here) were valid. Only 3,162 valid signatures are required.

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Even though there has been no verification from the Santa Clara County Registrar of Voters that there would be any recall election at all, the Recall Madison team is already all riled up over the potential shape and form of the recall ballot.

San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen (pictured) is facing efforts to recall her over the City’s decision to name a stretch of Story Road. The chosen name, “Saigon Business District,” is somehow seen as communist, as opposed to “Little Saigon.” So now the City’s taken back its decision and there’s no official name for the area. The City did give permits for privatedly funded banners proclaiming “Welcome to Little Saigon.” But apparently whatever name is not even the point any more.

More than three weeks ago (here), the group supporting the recall submitted 5,181 signatures asking for a recall election. The petition is impressive because it includes more than 2000 extra signatures (only 3,162 were needed) and it was submitted two whole weeks before the deadline.

The signatures are now being verified by the Registrar of Voters. The verification process will take 30 days.

Until then, there is no guarantee that there’s even any recall election at all.

But already the Recall Madison side is acting up over what the recall ballot may look like.

Someone leaked to them the idea that the recall ballot will be just that — “yes” or “no” on recall only. Allegedly, any replacement candidates will not run on the same election.

That made the recall side angry, and here’s why.

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The Bolsavik was forwarded the email that follows, purportedly from the San Jose City Clerk Lee Price, detailing the next steps after people seeking the recall of Councilwoman Madison Nguyen (pictured) turned in more than 5000 signatures. The Bolsavik hasn’t verified it, but it seems legitimate enough.

Anyway, according to this letter, it’s now too late for Madison Nguyen’s camp to try to get people to retract; apparently the deadline to retract was 5pm the day the petition was turned in.

Also, it seems that if the City Clerk’s Office certifies the petition as insufficient, that decision cannot be challenged — but the email says nothing about appealing a certification of the petition as sufficient.

Full text of the email follows after the jump. The “ROV” in the letter is short for Registrar of Voters. The verification must be done by the ROV because the signatures must be of registered voters in Madison Nguyen’s district.

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The people seeking to recall San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, needing to get 3,162 petition signatures by September 12, last Friday turned in two-thirds more than that number, submitting 5,181 signatures two weeks early.

Read the San Jose Mercury News story here. Read more on the Little Saigon Inside blog here.

According to the Little Saigon Inside blog, the recall team said they actually gathered 7,000 signatures, but didn’t want to have to verify them all so submitted only the 5,181.

Supporters of the recall efforts (not themselves on the committee) gave the Bolsavik various explanations as to why the committee submitted the signatures two weeks early. One said they wanted to show up the people who were badmouthing that they didn’t even have 1000 signatures. Other thought they were tired and just wanted to get it done and over with and move on.

Well, whatever the reason, it struck the Bolsavik that the recall camp may not have thought it through and may have handed Madison Nguyen an advantage.

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A week after people seeking her recall sent out their mailers, San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen went on Vietnamese radio and refuted the allegations made in the materials.

Just as the Bolsavik was pointed to the web site where the mailer was posted, the Bolsavik was also pointed to Madison’s Vietnamese site, where recordings from interviews on Que Huong Radio are posted — here.

Que Huong Radio is a controversial anti-communist radio program with its own set of enemies, that is has broken with other right-wing groups and instead supported Madison Nguyen.

In the interview, Madison rejected the claim that she directed $100,000 of city money to Lap Tang. (Read more here and here.) Or that she tried to hide it.

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Heating up an already hot potato, the campaign to recall Madison Nguyen in San Jose last week began sending mailers to all the voters in District 7 represented by the embattled councilwoman. Click on the picture to see the entire document.

The Bolsavik was pointed to the mailer at the Little Saigon Inside blog here. It is unknown whether the author of that blog is related to any of the several commenters on Bolsavik.com who name themselves little Saigon this or little Saigon that.

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The Director of Planning for the city of San Jose held a hearing yesterday morning about the hanging of “Welcome to Little Saigon” banner, and tentatively decided to allow 18 banners along Story Road.

As the meeting came to an end and the public comment session was ended, however, the supporters of “Little Saigon” became rowdy and started screaming and yelling. Director Joe Horwedel (pictured above, on right) called an end to the meeting, a staffer ran out to get more police to do crowd control, but the crowd dispersed with no incidents, other than people yelling “Recall Madison” Nguyen and “Recall Chuck Reed” - the mayor.

Read the Mercury News report here. Read the day’s agenda here; the Little Saigon thing is item 3.d.

Read more of the whole brouhaha on Bolsavik by selecting the tag “Story Road” - like this.

San Jose City Councilwoman Madison Nguyen, whom some people (such as  this one) have called “communist,” is found on YouTube giving her thoughts on the right-wing red-baiter’s favorite sports.

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If one thing perplexes the Bolsavik, it’s why anyone would bother trying to recall San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen. All politicians do something wrong and/or unpopular at one time or another, and only when they seriously piss someone off are they subject to recall (Gray Davis) or impeachment (Bill Clinton, unsuccessfully) or threat thereof (Richard Nixon).

So, was Madison’s opposition to the name “Little Saigon” that big of a deal that warrants a campaign to unseat her before her term is up?

Dr. Patrick Phu Le (Vietnamese: Lê Huu Phú) thinks so, and has said so on numerous occasions in newspaper columns. So on Sunday the Bolsavik contacted the man, who holds a Ph.D. from UC San Diego and is a realtor and owner and builder with Le Dynasty Construction, to really try to understand what the whole recall thing is all about.

According to Le (pictured standing, with Bryan Do also a recall proponent), the recall campaign has less to do with Madison’s opposition to the name Little Saigon, than with the reason behind that opposition. The opposition per se can be forgiven, the motivation cannot, said he to the Bolsavik by telephone.

Behind the whole thing, according to Le, is a man named Lap Tang. Tang owns the Grand Century Shopping Center on Story Road, right in the area of the naming controversy. (more…)